algea eater for small cichlid tank...

chinese algae eaters are not true algae eaters anyway, it's a common misconception. they actually get quite large too.
i used to have an apple snail in my betta tank. my betta would attack everything else so i decided to try a snail. everything was fine until the snail escaped through the hood opening where the filter goes and he died.
it never reproduced, it did eat my banana plant though. but you have fake plants so that shouldnt be a problem.
i would suggest the rubbernose pleco, but if they will bother the common pleco than maybe that wont be a good idea either. though my rubbernose pleco loved to do windows! he'd spend all day cleaning the sides of the tank.
have you thought about ghost shrimp? the cichlids MIGHT eat them, but they usually reproduce pretty well so if the cichlids eat them it might be a good thing...it will keep them from overrunning the tank and at the same time you'll have enough shrimp to keep the algae down...unless your cichlids are really hungry and eat all the shrimp before they have a chance to reproduce.

Apple snails are not asexual and have to have a male and female to reproduce, they also require a dry area to lay thier eggs, apple snails can get quite large, my green terror used to mess with my snail but soon he left him alone. He got quite large before he passed away.

How about a bristlenose pleco. Mine have never gotten very big and they do a great job with the algae. Get along great with the cichlids too.

what kind of cichlids do you have? What size tank?

If you're keeping smaller cichlids, you can consider otos. They're great algae eaters, stays small and easy to keep.

a anicistrus sp. pleco will do the trick. :thm:

you cant go past bristlenoses mate. they never get attacked by any fish and will have your tank looking like new in no time

what if you cant find bristlenoses ANYWHERE?
i looked this weekend, because i noticed my tank is starting to get algae. I have a pair of Kribs, a pair of cories, and 3 black neon tetras in a 20L. the Kribs leave the other fish alone, but they can be aggressive.
will they kill otos? the otos i could find were quite small only about 1/2 inch long.

Your LFS can order them for you, there isn't an LFS out there that can't get them. If they tell you otherwise they just don't want to take the time to order them for you. If you can't find something you like, you just need to start scraping the glass off with a razorblade or something similar and stepping up your water changes to remove the excess nutrients better. The ottos would be fine, they stay pretty low key.